Several Left organisations at Delhi University organised a protest meeting on the North Campus on Wednesday to demand the immediate release of Professor G. N. Saibaba, who was arrested earlier this month by the Maharashtra Police for alleged Maoist links. He was also suspended from his teaching post shortly thereafter.
The participants included his wife Vasantha; University Teachers’ Association president Prof. Nandita Narain; students and teachers of Ram Lal Anand College (where Prof. Saibaba taught); Delhi University Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Employees’ Union general secretary Amar Singh and Prof. Vikas Gupta of disability rights group Sambhavna.
They were demanding his immediate release from solidarity confinement in a Nagpur jail and that police interference in the University must stop.
“Action should be taken against the policemen who illegally abducted a 90-per-cent-disabled and wheelchair-bound person, and kept him in solitary confinement. The University community resolves to intensify the struggle and approach democratic sections of society to put pressure on the government to release Prof. Saibaba and to ensure that he is not denied the basic Constitutional safeguards and that his rights as a disabled person are protected,” said Hany Babu, who was also at the protest meet.
